Director of Quality - Food Bar Facility

The Director of Quality is a critical leadership role responsible for ensuring food safety, quality compliance, and customer confidence at Living Ecology’s food bar manufacturing facility. This position provides strategic and hands-on leadership for Quality Assurance and Food Safety systems across manufacturing, packaging, release, and continuous improvement activities. Food safety and consumer protection are paramount in this role, along with the ability to build strong relationships with customers, regulatory agencies, and cross-functional partners.

This is a high-impact opportunity to strengthen the Quality organization within a high pace, FMCG type business. The successful candidate will help build a strong, independent Quality Unit with increased authority, disciplined decision-making, and a sustainable “right-first-time” quality culture.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide leadership and oversight for Quality Assurance and Food Safety programs across food bar manufacturing, packaging, warehousing, and product release activities
• Ensure compliance with applicable regulatory requirements, including:
• • FDA food regulations and cGMPs
  • FSMA Preventive Controls
  • Customer and third-party audit requirements
• Serve as the primary quality contact for customers, supporting relationship management, issue resolution, audit activities, and quality governance discussions
• Lead site-wide foreign material prevention and contamination control programs, including:
• • Metal detection and x-ray verification systems
  • Glass, brittle plastic, and hard plastic control programs
  • Line clearance and startup verification practices
  • Equipment inspection and preventive maintenance collaboration
  • Environmental and operational controls designed to minimize contamination risk
  • Investigation and root cause analysis of foreign material complaints and events
• Strengthen and enforce systems related to:
• • Deviations
  • OOS and nonconformance investigations
  • CAPA
  • Change control
  • Batch record review and disposition
  • Complaint handling and trending
• Drive continuous improvement of contamination prevention systems through data trending, risk assessments, and cross-functional corrective actions
• Partner closely with Operations, Supply Chain, R&D, Sanitation, and Commercial teams while maintaining Quality independence and decision-making authority
• Lead, coach, and develop front-line QA personnel with a focus on accountability, training effectiveness, and operational execution
• Drive inspection readiness and support customer, regulatory, and certification audits
• Establish strong scientific and risk-based decision-making practices to support defensible batch disposition and product release activities
• Promote a culture centered on food safety, contamination prevention, continuous improvement, and consumer protection
• Other duties as assigned

Regulatory & Operational Environment

The facility operates within a complex manufacturing environment requiring strong food safety and quality system discipline. The site is actively investing in:

• Food Safety and QA governance
• Deviation, CAPA, and investigation rigor
• Documentation and data integrity practices
• Training effectiveness
• Inspection and audit readiness
• Foreign material prevention and contamination control systems
• Cross-functional accountability and continuous improvement

Ideal Candidate Profile

• Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Microbiology, Chemistry, Engineering, or related scientific discipline strongly preferred
• 10+ years of Quality leadership experience within:
• • Food manufacturing
  • Nutritional bars/snacks
  • Dietary supplements
  • OTC, cosmetics, or pharmaceutical manufacturing environments
• Strong background in Food Safety and FDA-regulated manufacturing environments
• Demonstrated experience:
• • Leading Quality teams in fast-paced manufacturing operations
  • Managing customer relationships and quality communications
  • Implementing and strengthening foreign material prevention programs
  • Owning and defending batch release decisions
  • Building practical QA systems that work effectively on the manufacturing floor
  • Supporting and leading regulatory and customer audits
• Strong understanding of:
• • FSMA Preventive Controls
  • Environmental monitoring and sanitation programs
  • Foreign material prevention systems and risk mitigation
  • CAPA, deviations, and root cause investigations
  • Food manufacturing risk management
• Comfortable making difficult quality decisions and appropriately challenging Operations or R&D when necessary
• Practical, calm, collaborative, and highly credible leadership style

Leadership & Culture Fit

• Collaborative but firm
• Visible and engaged on the manufacturing floor
• Strong customer interaction and communication skills
• Coaches and develops teams rather than policing them
• Promotes accountability and “right-first-time” execution

Leads with urgency, ownership, and professionalism